Adeline Diaz said she’ll be doing less dishes and laundry with her husband now deployed, but she’d happily clean all day if it meant having him home.

As the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit left Camp Lejeune on Friday for an eight-month deployment abroad, families, friends and fellow service members gathered to see them off. With more than 2,400 Marines and sailors, the 22nd MEU will be stationed on the Bataan Amphibious Group for the duration of the deployment, which will be spent training alongside host nations across the globe. For months, the men and women of the MEU have been training for this deployment; and with it finally here, goodbyes were bittersweet as families realized their much-anticipated homecoming was already one day closer.

“This is our third deployment, I just try to keep my kids distracted,” Diaz said. “As long as I’m busy keeping my kids occupied and not thinking about him being gone, I’ll be alright with it. The hardest part is keeping them occupied.”

Having been together for 10 years and married for six, Diaz got used to her husband deploying rapidly during his first few years in the Marine Corps. But he’s been home for a year and she got used to having him around. Getting back into the “deployment mindset” has been a challenge, but she took consolation in knowing that her husband wasn’t headed back to Afghanistan.

“It’s a relief with him going on a MEU because it’s a little less to worry about,” she said.

There is an upside to deployments, though.

Sgt. Ubarnel Diaz Jr. said his time away has helped keep his marriage in a honeymoon stage – always happy to see one another because you never know when you will leave again.

“Marriage never really gets old because you come back and learn everything you missed out on with your family,” he said. “Seeing how much your entire family changes while you’re gone and to see how drastically that change has been is the most difficult part but it’s worth it.

“You’re always learning something new about your family.”

Ubarnel Diaz III, 5, is going to miss spending alone time with his father and looks forward to him coming home so the two can go get chocolate ice cream with sprinkles together and play cards, he said.

“I’m going to miss him because I love him and we always do fun stuff together,” he said. “Even though he takes all of my toys away when I’m not good, I’m really going to miss him.”

Marine Col. William Dunn, commanding officer of the MEU, said the Marines will deploy on three different Navy ships, allowing the Corps to move forces across multiple regions.

Page 2 of 2 - “The big difference between (a MEU) and a deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan is that (as a MEU) we don’t have a specific mission,” Dunn said. “We will deploy and as missions pop up, we can respond in six hours.”

Coined as America’s 9-1-1 force, the MEU, he said, can provide assistance in multiple locations at the same time due to having a variety of assets within the amphibious group. Some of the training the MEU conducted prior to deploying were raids, some of which spanned 1,300 miles and lasted roughly three days.

“The Marines of the 22 MEU are ready to deploy and have met all training requirements,” he said. “They just need to know, as we get out the door, that they need to be ready and be ready to fight.”